


The Case of the Infuriating Flatmate

by ATouchOfCommonSense



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angry John, But He’s Totally In Love You Guys, Caring Sherlock, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Hair Brushing, John in Denial, M/M, Misunderstandings, POV John Watson, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 16:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19398409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATouchOfCommonSense/pseuds/ATouchOfCommonSense
Summary: John was beginning to think that an interesting flatmate with an admittedly intriguing affinity for danger was not worth the trouble anymore.





	The Case of the Infuriating Flatmate

The thing that pushed John over the edge this time did not include body parts in the fridge or a tantrum that would put a petulant child to shame—though those situations were not far from John’s mind as he paced back and forth in front of a locked door that prevented him from getting inside his own flat. With the threat of rain imminent, of course.

No. What had really done John in was the flat’s lock being changed for the second time that week. Mrs. Hudson being on holiday apparently warranted new security measures that ensured John was forbidden from entering 221B multiple days that week.

John wouldn’t care nearly as much had he been gifted with a key to said security measures. He probably would have even approved of Sherlock’s lock changing. The first time.

Looking up as the steadily darkening clouds closed in, John let out a loud huff of frustration. He was never going to forgive Sherlock if he got soaked.

~

John’s day had started out quite pleasant, all things considered. He had risen a few minutes before his alarm, having had a full night’s rest for once, and reveled in the morning sunlight for a full minute before he leisurely made his way to the shower. He then spent a glorious thirty minutes enjoying the warm spray, which seemed like a wonderful idea at the time. Unfortunately, his prolonged shower turned out to be his first mistake in a long list of infuriating events that accumulated throughout the day.

His shower left him running late by fifteen minutes which meant he had to forgo breakfast in favor of catching a cab to work. In his haste, John forgot to say goodbye to Sherlock and reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone on his way out. He was already composing the apology text in his brain when his hand thrust into his coat pocket turned up phone-less. A thorough investigation of both his coat and trouser pockets confirmed the fact. He did not have his phone. It was probably still plugged in next to his bed, when John thought about it. 

Ah well. No time to get it new. If he didn’t dawdle now and he was able to successfully hail a cab soon, John could avoid being late for work. No reason losing that for a phone. Besides. There was a landline at the office. 

With no way to contact Sherlock, John set about twiddling his thumbs in the back seat of the cab he finally got to pull over for him. Despite his obvious agitation, the cabbie John was rewarded with was an old fellow that was more interested in the London scenery than getting John where he needed to be. John thought about urging the driver to go faster— he was twelve minutes behind schedule now, by God— but he figured that he would sound a bit too much like Sherlock for his liking. ‘Honestly, John,’ he could almost hear Sherlock saying, ‘Being polite is boring. A few words of encouragement would get us where we need to be!’

Words of encouragement. Right.

Silent and Pleasant John won against Imaginary Sherlock in the end and he rushed into the medical center a whopping thirty minutes late. Without his phone he was unable to warn the clinic of his late arrival and he was confronted with more than a few angry colleagues who had to pick up the slack while he was meandering through London in the slowest cab of the century. On top of that, he owes one doctor a favor, so says the gossip receptionist. Allegedly, John’s first patient of the day had the stomach bug and the doctor filling in for him was sprayed with sick.

Assuming that is true, he definitely owed Dr. Swica a drink or two.

~

John spent the entire day playing catch-up. Flu season was doing nothing to lighten his workload and he was swamped with patients from the moment he stepped through the door to halfway through his lunch break. At that point John was fed up with being behind and skipped lunch all together to get ahead of the game for the first time that day. 

He filled out paperwork and signed prescriptions and listened to sniveling adults whine about their foot or their head or whatever else for what felt like days. At the end of the day, John came dangerously close to snapping at an imbecile runner complaining about a strange pain in his calves.

The man apparently had no idea why he had cramps through his legs, despite proudly telling his doctor he had been running half marathons every week for a month and a half. The man should have been thanking his lucky stars he didn’t do more than pull a few leg muscles!

Once the man left with a sign on some mild pain killers and orders to take a rest once in a while, John Watson stepped out of the stupid clinic tired, hungry, and insanely aggravated. 

Having forgotten altogether the blissful feeling of a full night’s sleep, John trudged up to the road with his medical bag in tow, wondering if someone had snuck bricks in it when he wasn’t looking. Even his own hand felt like gravity was being stupidly strong as he raised it to catch another cab.

The cabbie this time around was a bit too eager to swerve around slower traffic and flirt with the speed limit, but John supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers. At least he made it home in record time.

Dragging his way up to the flat labeled “221” in proud gold script, John pulled out his key, given to him by Sherlock just three days before. John didn’t see what was so different from their old lock to the one installed a few days ago, but Sherlock seemed to think it was much better than the modest little lock Mrs Hudson applied years ago. The blogger didn’t really care. So long as John could get in and murderers couldn’t he was fine with it.

The sky was looking a bit drearier than usual so John picked up the pace, hoping to make his way inside before he got drenched.

He went to shove the new key into the lock when he was stopped by the size of the key hole. The key he had looked much too big to fit in such a tiny lock. Aside from the side, the lock looked exactly the same as the one that had been on the door yesterday.

John turned the key around in his hand. No, this was definitely the key Sherlock gave him. Silver, with a curl of design at the end and ridges of varying lengths on the other end. He tried to press the gleaming tool in the mini lock anyway. To no one’s surprise, the key did not fit. John tried it upside down and even tried to jam it in sideways in desperation. Still nothing. 

Distracting John from his angry jamming was the faint sounds of water landing on the pavement. Damn it. 

Sherlock better be in the bloody flat and let him in, John thought as he rang the doorbell for the first, then the second time. His current ability to endure Sherlock’s antics was already quite low, given the day he was having. Showing up to a lock of Sherlock’s doing denying John the peace and quiet of his home was really causing his tolerance meter to reach dangerously low levels.

As the first droplets began to decorate John’s hair, John began expanding his generally mild lexicon pertaining to colorful language. ‘Sherlock the absolute shitting bastard’ was one of the tamer phrases passing his lips.

Which leads John to his present situation, considering disowning his flatmate in order to avoid hypothermia. He was not dressed for the weather and his useless, thin jumper will be soaked through in a matter of minutes. If Sherlock was in the flat and deliberately ignoring John, he suspected he may just break into the flat, regardless of the fact that a very thick door and a Sherlock-approved deadbolt lie in his way. When John hit the thirtieth ring, he gave up with the doorbell. Either Sherlock was ignoring him or he was out.

Either way, Sherlock had to know full well that changing the lock would shut John out of the flat. Leaving was essentially the same thing as refusing to answer the door.

John tried to think about the last time he had made Sherlock’s temper flare. Maybe this was payback for not saying goodbye? God. That must be it. He probably thought John was avoiding him and he intended to fight fire with fire.

What a mess this was. John didn’t really want to waste another cab fare to get somewhere dryer. He would have taken the tube to work— god knows he can’t afford everyday London cab rides to work after spending most of his earnings on trips to obscure places for cases with Sherlock— but the closest tube had been down for a few days and London had been rather panicked about the whole ordeal. The news barely talked about anything else yesterday night.

On top of not wanting to spend any more money on a cab, John was insanely tired. He was dreading the simple trip up the stairs to the flat; he couldn’t imagine walking multiple blocks to some establishment or another, just to have to trudge back sometime later, hoping Sherlock would be home by then. 

John didn’t really see any other option than to wait it out.

Admitting defeat, John sat in front of the only thing preventing him from a warm fire and a relaxing book and drew his knees up to his chest. A little rain wouldn’t kill him, it wouldn’t even get him sick, despite popular opinion. All the same, he really hoped he wasn’t stuck out here for long. Being tired and emotionally strung out did not help much with immune system upkeep and rain didn’t exactly improve his state. 

John couldn’t afford a sick day after all the skip days he used on Sherlock’s cases.

For lack of anything interesting to do, he thought about Sherlock’s motive for shutting John out of their home. He didn’t think not saying goodbye in the morning would have any effect of Sherlock at all. It was like he said before John moved in— Sherlock didn’t speak for days on end. Was John’s lack of communication worse somehow?

Now that John thought about it, this probably didn’t have much to do with John not saying goodbye. Sherlock would not admit to such a thing bothering him, even if John’s pleasantries to Sherlock were held to different standards than Sherlock’s.

In all honesty, Sherlock’s absence probably had more to do with the work than John. John has fallen second place to the work on many occasions.

As the rain started to fall harder, John curled up tighter around himself. He really hoped Sherlock had a good excuse for his disappearing act this time. Case or no case, the ill-tempered ex surgeon didn’t think he could handle an aloof or unapologetic Sherlock after this.

~

It can’t have been more than twenty minutes later when John heard the entirely frantic steps of a taller man. Looking up, John realized that the urgent stride belonged to his missing flatmate, his obviously expensive shoes clicking purposely on the pavement.

Seeing John’s rather slumped form, Sherlock broke into a jog and said, “John. John, are you alright?”

Sherlock seemed to answer his own question with a glance, not waiting for John to reply before continuing, a little out of breath. “I believe a bit of an explanation is in order. I changed the lock this morning shortly after you left due to an experiment related to the melting points of various rare substances given to me as a sort of payback for a solid favor given to one of my contacts. I may have melted through our previous security appliance when one of the substances refused to properly liquefy.”

At this addition, John’s face contorted to one of horror, expecting the rest of the flat must be charred through if the heat was so intense that it melted the lock downstairs from where the two usually reside. 

Sherlock’s mouth turned up slightly at the corner, no doubt understanding John’s concern. “Don’t look to taken aback, John. I did not burn down the flat. In fact, the only thing irreparably destroyed was the lock. I was doing the experiment in the hall to avoid any fumes to invade our flat and a rather heated substance was shot in the direction of the door.”

“You mean you through it at the door in a rage,” John corrected, a bit too smuggly for Sherlock’s taste, given his dread that eclipsed his expression moments before.

“I don’t ‘rage’, John; don’t be ridiculous. I was simply coaxing it to reach a liquified state by means of blunt force.”

John just went on grinning, ignoring Sherlock’s frankly weak protests about losing his temper over an inanimate object.

“Anyway,” Sherlock said loudly, hoping to snap John out of his self satisfied mood. “Lestrade text me about a woman murdered downtown and it sounded to absolutely juvenile but I was bored so I went down there with full intention to return to the flat well before you arrived home. I thought I would be out of there in less than three hours— I already had my suspicions about the sister— but it turned out that she employed someone else to do the dirty work and therefore had a strong alibi. I already had it solved when the rain started, but by then—”

Sherlock cut off when he noticed John shiver rather violently. In his hastily efforts to explain, he neglected to do the one thing he rushed over here to do. Wonderful.

“Sherlock! It’s okay. I’m f-fine.” John let out a huff at how unconvincing he sounded. It was hard to act resolute when sporting chattering teeth.

Sherlock, ignoring John’s obviously insincere platitudes, pulled out a plain black key from his trouser pocket. “Come on, John. A fire will do you good.”

At John’s hesitation, Sherlock offered his hand. He rolled his eyes at John’s grateful smile but his eyes twinkled and his mouth twitched before he spun around and pulled John through the door and up to 221B. 

~

As it turns out, Guilty Sherlock can be quite the caretaker. He made pulled John to the sofa and wrapped him in a towel he seemed to pull out of thin air before striding to the kitchen, presumably to make tea. John sat in stunned silence as Sherlock flitted around the kitchen gathering the necessary ingredients before putting the kettle on. His peculiar partner didn’t make tea unless he was feeling extremely bad about something.

John almost commented on this truthfully effective tactics, but before John could get a word in, Sherlock ran around a corner, abandoning the half prepared tea.

He returned two minutes later with a pile of blankets, dry clothes, and various other helpful items such as cold medicine.

“We have a hair dryer?” John asked as he dug through the mass unceremoniously dumped on the sofa beside him.

Sherlock squinted at him before turning to tend to the now squealing kettle. “You must be sicker than I thought. Obviously we have a hair dryer. We are not heathens, John.”

“Oh,” John mused, turning the blow dryer around in his hand scrutinizingly. “Wait, I’m not sick at all, Sherlock!” John protested after his thoughts were drawn away from the suspicious object in his hand.

Raised an eyebrow and placed a cup of tea in John’s cold hands. Gesturing to the clothes pushed to one side of the pile, Sherlock said, “Change. You’re ruining the upholstery.” 

“Ah, course,” John muttered, snatching the clothes and making his way to his room, his temporary surprise suddenly forgotten in favor of his earlier fowl mood. Really? ‘Ruining the upholstery’? 

When John got back, dressed in a thick jumper and dry trousers, the sitting room was at least three degrees warmer than when he left. Sherlock had lit a fire and was now standing in the middle of the room looking a bit uncomfortable.

“Hey, you alright?” John asked, unnerved by Sherlock’s lack of usual bluster.

Sherlock strode from the center of the sitting room to John’s chair, which— John was just now noticing— was covered in what had to be at least three duvets. The bedding was arranged in such a way that reminded John of a very comfortable nest.

“Yes fine. Sit,” Sherlock belatedly responded with a gesture to the decked out chair. When John failed to move for the singular second Sherlock was willing to wait for a reply, he added, “You’re tea is still warm. I suggest you come and drink it now if you wish to finish it before it becomes unpleasantly tepid.” 

Given the proper motivation and the necessary time, John made his way over to his chair. Sherlock gave a nod of approval at John and traveled to the heap of collected items still adorning the sofa. As John made himself comfortable sitting cross legged in the center of his little nest, Sherlock gathered up the suspicious hair dryer and a previously overlooked fine tooth comb. 

Without a word, the hair dryer was plugged in beside John and the detective set to work removing the remaining moisture from his damp hair. 

John had learned a long time ago that if it wasn’t hurting anyone or destroying the flat, most Sherlock associated experiments should go unquestioned. Out of all of his strange behaviors, gently brushing through John’s hair while restoring its natural body was rather tame, all things considered.

So John decided to do what was easiest and lent back ever so slightly into Sherlock’s touch. They rarely held prolonged physical contact of any form and John can’t say he was opposed to a little extra affection now and then. He hadn't had a girlfriend in almost two months now—Sherlock’s doing, most definitely—and he was rather starved of affection on all fronts.

This led to Sherlock brushing John’s hair like a proper child. He brushed and dried and put some sort of product in it and then brushed some more. He seemed to be fussing a fair bit over something that John spent no time at all doing.

“Just because you just stick a comb in it and call it ready for the day doesn’t mean I have to, John,” Sherlock shouted over the drier.

John grinned and closed his eyes.

“Yes, well. If you’re planning on doing this every time my hair gets mussed, I might stop brushing it all together.”

Sherlock huffed and dropped the brush to the ground with a clang. He then switched to using his dexterous fingers to card through John’s damp hair. 

John was quite enjoying this. He found it wasn’t hard to ignore the fact that the one brushing his hair was his flatmate. His married-to-his-work, MALE flatmate. What other people would say to their unique situation seemed so inconsequential behind the closed doors of 221B. He let himself relax.

After a half hour or so, Sherlock shut off the hair drier. After he got used to the buzzing of the hair drier, the flat was so silent. 

“John?” 

John could hear Sherlock shift from one foot to his other almost nervously. 

“Mmmh?” 

“John, I would like—that is to say... May I?”

John was almost asleep. He was halfway to REM and Sherlock decided to ask him some sort of encrypted message that he doubted he would understand if his brain was working at full capacity. That is the only excuse he has for his flippant answer.

“Whatever you want, Sherlock.”

Slowly, Sherlock walked around to face John. John stores at him with wide, questioning eyes.

“Stand up.”

John was under some sort of trance, he was sure of it. He stood up with no argument and continued to look at Sherlock. John Watson would claim until the day he died that he did not know what was coming next. He knew his racing heart beat gave him away, though.

Sherlock stepped closer. He was almost nose to nose with John. John looked up into the eyes of his other half, his savior, his best friend, and leaned in.

John quietly asked himself if maybe this, what they were doing right now, crossed a line. 

John promptly told himself to shut up and deepened the kiss.


End file.
